


Escape

by Melodicdissonance



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Ancient History, Character Study, Diary/Journal, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, My First Work in This Fandom, My interpretation of lore, Other, no romance at least in beginning, real world character in a game world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 21:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16313153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melodicdissonance/pseuds/Melodicdissonance
Summary: Trapped in the pits of major depression, their only escape was in virtual worlds. In the games behind the screen. But for one, a game to escape from reality just became....reality.CW: Mental illness issues, possible death scenes, violence, etc.(I'm crap at summary. Gah.)





	1. Fragments

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts off with a series of maybe significant and not-so significant diary entry of a college student just struggling through life as depression takes hold and never lets go.
> 
> ~My interpretation of Hollow Knight history even though the lore itself sometimes feels fractured~
> 
> Let me know if there's any corrections I should be making! I'd love to hear from you all~

_Friday - 5th Jan._

Dear...well..diary I suppose?

It felt like I should start a new diary for the year even though it’s been 5 days in. _Therapy_ seem to think it’s a good idea anyway. I’m suppose to write something even if it’s just a sentence long.

Such a chore.

Anyway!

I’ve just got a new game a couple months ago. _Hollow Knight._

To be fair I’ve been playing it for a long time with many reruns! Gosh, the lore sometimes fucks with my brain. Like parts of it is missing or something?

Anyway! I’ve played so much that I’ve started dreaming of it! Isn’t that great?

Well...dreaming of some kind of Hollow Knight themed thing anyway. The bugs I’ve seen were huuuuuge. Clearly my imagination is much more creative then I am.

* * *

_Saturday - 6th Jan._

I couldn’t get up from bed today. Played HK.

* * *

_Sunday - 7th Jan._

I told Tony & co. I can’t make it to the party. I’m in bed. Sigh maybe I should try harder?

* * *

_Monday - 8th Jan._

I finally managed to communicate with the bugs in my dream! They told me so many interesting things!

Like they could talk without their mouths moving! It’s like an X-men thing! Telepathy!

Apparently they’re all of the same species, or generally the same species? All the children are grub-like anyway.

I hope I dream of HK again!

 

* * *

_Tuesday - 9th Jan._

Didn’t dream at all. Must be the new meds.

 

* * *

_Wednesday - 17th Jan_

I’m not sure if I was hallucinating but I’ve heard their voice when I’m awake. I mean it’s only a whisper and I couldn’t make out what they said but I swear I heard them! Maybe it’s a sign of schizophrenia or something. But I doubt so….

 

* * *

_Saturday - 20th Jan_

Everyday feels empty. I wake so tired nowadays...but at least I got to dream every night for the past week! I’ve learned so much about my imaginary world! There’s even different religions. I’ve seen some bugs experimenting with something that looks like soul and void and radiance! Maybe it’s my mind trying to fill the void of history. I mean the Pale King can’t actually be the one that gives intelligence to the bugs. There’s like huge statues of ancients and Quirrell ventured _out_ of Hallownest with his mind intact!

 

* * *

_Tuesday - 13th Feb_

I’ve just flushed the sleeping drug that therapy gave. It’s not making life any easier to bare and I’d rather feel tired on waking than not dreaming at all…

 

* * *

_Thursday - 15th Feb_

Their voice is louder now. Still slightly above a whisper but now I could hear the words!

 ~~They’re begging for help. “Help….h---lp Us” or something like that.~~ What is going on?

 

* * *

_Monday - 26th Feb_

The dreams I had are surreal! I’m starting to doubt if it’s a dream at all! But it must be! I mean clearly it stems from all the time I’ve spent gaming…

 

* * *

_Saturday - 17th Mar._

Lifeblood. Radiance. Void. Soul.

Arcane eggs are knowledge orbs. Uses soul to open.

Radiance - Moths (dreams, foreknowledge)

Void - Bettles (power, strength beyond all)

Lifeblood - ~~???~~ They look like.. ~~spiders~~? Six eyed insects…(healing, time halting)

Soul - unity of all 3, newest god, arcane powers.

I mean shit summary I know!

But they asked for my help, physically in a dream. They said I have time to choose as it’s a heavy choice. But to be fair, it’s not like there’s much for me in this world anyway…the only time I feel anything is within my dreams….that’s pitiful, huh.

 

* * *

* * *

A dark claw pats fondly on the slightly cracked mask of a small Vessel. Their voice croaks:

_Over decades, different insect species evolved._

_Moths started worshipped Radiance, in its glorious light and in prophetic dreams. She whispers to them, guiding them and giving them the power of foreknowledge,_

_Beetles worshipped the Void,_

_the dark and endless being,_

_he embraces them in life and soothes them in death._

_He bestowed onto them the knowledge and strength of one who does not fear death,_

_for death is a way of unity with past ancestors._

_Few follow the gentle sway and gleaming wings of Life._

_She who breathes new life into all._

_Though reclusive by nature,_

_they spend their lives guarding the condensed form of lifeblood.”_

Looking down with all six eyes, at the small form with the cracked mask, they smiled gently as they load yet another harvest of lifeseeds into the small structure as they continued on their brief lecture of history to the silent, still form.

_But a special few refuses to pick sides chose to be guardians of being. Guardians of the soul. For within every living being there is the soul in which arcane arts are made from. Where even the tiniest, youngest bug learns to use, to fuel their legs and jump higher than any should be able to._

_Hahaha that was a fond memory of my youth. Got into such trouble too....ah...where was I..._

_Oh yes! Ahem._

_Yet as it always is and will always be, not all experiments were for good causes and some got greedy for power. The boredom of this static life reflects in the boldness of their experiments. What was once created for the search of knowledge became creations of greed. For what is more important than the collection of more power. Slowly the bugs of power forget that their Gods were living, breathing beings too, although not ones encased within hard shells._

The dark being pinged the Vessel's mask as it continues pouring lifeseed after lifeseed, slowly submerging their form.

_The moths claimed that the Pale King persuaded them to forget the Radiance, and that is what caused the start of the infection. The Pale King claimed that sacrifices are made for the greater good. For no cost is too much to sacrifice to stop the infection and he created thousands of vessels to contain it forever._

_Yet not one bug remembers, remember the ancient beings that ripped the heart of Void into shreds._

**_Just to milk out one. last. drop. of power._ **

_They took from the Radiance so much light,_

**_that even the foreknowing ones are blinded._ **

It's voice shook with simmering anger.

_We, the guardians of Lifeblood has seen this and fled, just barely, before the claws of the greedy, before they close around our God. And Soul, the youngest of the four gods, the strongest but also in some ways, the most fragile. Poor Soul was forgotten by the heretics._

_As the essence of Radiance warped and no longer laid within our eggs, as void in his madness no longer embrace us. Soul weakens in every generation till now they lay dormant in all!_

_All due to the greed of ones who were trusted to guard their Gods. Fools all of them._

_But now we, the true loyals, must run and hide._

The old, decrepit ancient being gave the small vessel a last stroke with their still shiny black claw as they encourage the living bark to grow over the now submerged Vessel.

_Hide. All of us. But you dear one._

_You will help Soul regain their foothold and bring the glory days back again._

_...Well...one can only hope._

_We’re lucky you landed without our reach. Our legs aren’t the best for climbing down this damned pit...and we're starved of company so we're sorry for the long rambling, young one._

They wobbled off, whistling a soft tune as the Lifeblood plant branches grew around them, concealing the newest secret they now hold within their branches.


	2. infection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life as it is continues to thrive against all odds, but what is life when it is a pale comparison to the ones born before the calamity?
> 
> Few lived long enough to remember, as for the bugs of Hallownest, life is lived in an oblivious haze for the majority.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief exploration of characters and their thoughts during the first spread of infection as well as a little of Seer after the Pure Vessel was bound for a time.

Experiments and growth of knowledge made recording from verbal and written to stored in ‘arcane eggs’ or ‘knowledge orbs’.

Accessible by touch due to being of soul.

Most of course, were destroyed in time.

Some by accidents but more for containing that which is _forbidden._

* * *

And this remains as it is for a long time before a Pale One’s bid for more power to fight the infection that a warped and shattered Radiance has spread, its twisted voice slithering within dreams, ensnaring all within its reach in a bid to feel _alive_  and _whole_ once again. The bugs infected started showing signs of this affliction.

First a sudden rapid decline of intelligence and speech, a small spark of orange in their eyes. Difficulty identifying reality from dream. Then comes mindlessness, a sudden violence towards those uninfected, a need to consume for the light.

 ** _For the Light_**.

Family turning on family. Neighbours on neighbours. Guards on those they were meant to protect.

The Pale King watches on as his kingdom collapses slowly around him, first from the outer regions of the land. The infection spreads inwards, he ordered a move of the capital from the surface to deep underground, beneath the great Blue Lake for it slows Radiance’s reach. To buy more time to fix this affliction.

He needed more power for this fight against the plague upon the bugs in his kingdom. And what else gives the most power if not the void?

This marked the beginning of a slew of experiments and studies. Experiments that may have crossed the lines of ethics, of morality. The upper castes were kept oblivious. The lower castes where poverty ran.....

Well. They hardly would miss one less mouth to feed, would they?

More Soul is needed to severe parts of the Void he needs. And while he publicly rejects the Soul Sanctum and their experiments. Initially they worked together for a solution for this plague. 

And with every experiment, with every attempt deemed a failure, not powerful enough, Kingsmould too subservient, their commands fulfilled just to the letter. Wingsmould, although capable of flight does naught else, unable to fulfill all but the simplest of commands, these were made into sentries alongside the King’s Guards as well as toys for the upper caste of society.

Then the Pale King created Vessels. And the Soul Sanctum became invalid. Unneeded. Their experimenting ordered to cease immediately. Yet the Soul Master, with whispers in his dreams. Promises of power. Immortality. Merely dove deeper into souls and their harvesting. All hidden under the Pale King's feelers.

* * *

 Vessels. Hollow beings made from the merging of souls and of void. Yet no living being can truly be hollow in its pure form, for being alive, one becomes filled.

And with every failed Vessel thrown down into the pits for feeling too much, having emotions-based actions, for being too weak, their fading spark of soul and essence bind.

Where Soul weeps for every scream Void makes in his voiceless anguish as with every vessel made, Void is shredded as parts of him, taken. Torn and tainted with soul and life that even a vessel’s death could not merge within him again.

Soul weeps for every Vessel’s death. And there are thousands, thousands thrown into the pits as new life fades all too soon.

Masks shattering and cracking amongst the rapidly growing pile of _discarded waste_.

They weep and their tears once was a stream became a raging river. A raging river of soul, invisible to those without sight to see it, flowing amongst the shattered and broken masks in the abyss. Merging with new Vessels, merging enough that when the Pure one was chosen, there was soul enough to breathe certain life into the rejected one that just fell from the highest ledge. The one with two curved, rabbit-like horns.

Lucky to be unseen by the Pale King as they fell from the precipice. Black staring into black. A brief backward glance from their sibling, a backward glance with a sense of _apology_ and _grief_ for their sibling that fell.

They free-fall beyond all the large menacing blocks that made up the terrible trial for new vessels. They fall, passing rows of sharp blades, gleaming malice for any vessel unlucky enough to fall on them.

Passing a faint blue glow of butterfly-like plants, they manage to look at with a strange tinge of _something_ in their mind. A tinge of...

 _Curiosity_ turning into  _sadness_ just as they zoomed past the strange ledge when another of their ill-fated sibling had just landed, their mask cracking with a sickening sound which echoes and fades as they continued on their fall to certain death.

Certain death circumvented by Soul, by siblings banding together, even as shades.

Using all of their little sparks of fading soul to grant them a soft landing. Well, soft enough for them to live. Yet it took all their strength, despite numbering in the thousands and they fade back into their collective void to regain their strength.

The Pale King is wrong. What he sees as a barren land meant to contain the Radiance, hides seeds beneath its soil. The ground in which he thinks is solid, hides beneath _quicksand_. 

* * *

The Radiance have been sealed, the sacrifice tremendous. The Queen retreats frequently to her garden. Grief-stricken. They said love blinds all and her head bows with guilt and grief as her seeds were used _for the greater good_ . No. For a bug’s desperate attempt for control over a kingdom so divided by caste. By greed. By Geo. _Her children_ , all of them. Sacrificed by the thousands. She could blame her love for the Pale King, she could blame his ruthlessness. But no. She willingly played a part in this tragedy.

Ha. How naive she was then to look down in disdain at the spiders, at the residents of the Deepnest. At the rumours of matriphagy in some of their population.

And now look at her. _Infanticide_.

Thousands of death not at her hand, yet it felt as it were.

The instinct within her to breed still strong, cultivated and manipulated by the King, by her willingness to please that even now she feels it.

The urge to spread her seeds.

 _No_.

She will do no more in this ill-fated kingdom.

Determined, she starts building in secret, with the help of her trusted guards and the endurance of the mosskins whose backs helped with moving stone and materials needed to turn her garden into a fortress. She erected her new dwellings. A cocoon of bindings, a self-made and self-imposed prison for her sins.

_She was not fit to be mother. How possibly could she be a Queen so revered? So honored?_

Yet loyal, honorable, fierce Dryya with her loyalty that knows no bound, had offered to guard her Queen in her new prison. Standing guard outside its only entrance, even in sleep she has her nail resting against herself, able to act upon any indication of danger or threat.

 

_No mind to think…_

_No will to break…_

_No voice to cry suffering...!_

Oh what have we done. My children. _My children._ **_My. Children!_**

* * *

**_“...Wyrms pull bugs into their thrall, Till ages pass and kingdoms fall…” -Mr. Mushroom_ **

**_“As history goes on I grow numb to its repetitions.” - Seer_ **

 

Seer sits alone at the top of the resting grounds near Dirtmouth. Long tasked with its upkeep yet visitors dwindled despite the dead growing. She could feel change in the air.

Ahhh such _fools_ , her tribe was. Pah. Forgetting our Radiance. Wise words from elders falling on deaf ears. We were _thriving_! **_Almost fixing_** our broken god. 

She was content despite her sickness. Ahhhh.

So _**close** _ to fix our past mistakes. We moths used to remember always. Our crimes. Our sins. Ahhhh. No use to ponder over spilled eggs. A duty to do. Yes.

She fluttered her old wings slowly, shaking off what minuscule dust that has collected over them as she got up from her cushions. Slipping away to go about her daily round of the resting grounds.

Yet her thoughts could not be pried from rumination. From loneliness.

Decisions that doomed the tribe to ruins. To turn a tribe of many into a tribe of one survivor and a clutch of eggs never hatched, yet somehow...alive. Waiting.

Ahhhh. She guards them like she guards the final resting place.

She hopes the snail nomad clans fared better than her tribe did. They were doing good work uniting soul and void.

….Ahhhh how the ancient ones have fallen. She ponders as she wipes down the towering totem, her antenna fluttering ever so slightly in the soft breeze. She could hear the muffled shuffling of infected mummies, crawling about listlessly.

_Twisted. Trapped. Light. Blinding light. Too much. Broken. Broken. TrapTrapTheyBurnBurnLight. BindingWeakens.Weakening.StopHerStopUs.Us?Broken.Broken.Help.HELP._

The fragile wisp of a united Radiance whispers within her mind. Her mind where it was safest to hold this fragile being least the world seek to tear this fragment apart like the rest of her being.

Seer misses the time where the gods walked amongst them, towering and guiding. With welcoming hands and a want to impart their wisdom.

Ahhhh. Those days…

Pity. Pity. Other moths forgot. Forgot and thrown the fragile, fragile Radiances we worked so hard to find and fix. Like a jigsaw within jigsaw pieces within more pieces.


End file.
